Sharing files in Win10 - best solution?

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kiwifidget

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#190899 15-Jan-2016 16:07

I provide voluntary IT support to a local charity.

I have been upgrading their computers to Windows 10, and I have 2 left to do.

They are Win7Pro machines.
OFFICE1 has one local user account and a USB attached printer which is shared.
OFFICE2 has 3 local user accounts and a collection of "shared" files in the Public folder which OFFICE1 has full access to.

There are also some Win10Home laptops and a Win10Pro PC on the network.
There is no server and no homegroup set up. They all share a common Workgroup name so that all PC's can access the shared printer.
The laptops dont seem to be able to browse to the Public folder on OFFICE2.
I'm not sure whether the Win10Pro PC can or not.

I have been holding off upgrading these 2 pc's until I have all my ducks in a row.
This is my last duck.

If I upgrade them will the current scenario still work or will I need to implement a different solution for the sharing of files between OFFICE1 and OFFICE2?
All the other machines must not have access to the shared files.

Please do not suggest a NAS or anything that involves buying more hardware or software.

Thanks.

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timmmay

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#1472090 15-Jan-2016 16:52

Try this thread - shared folders. Homegroups didn't work for me at all.

toyonut

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#1472095 15-Jan-2016 16:55

Join them all to a homegroup? Set it up on the current win10 machines to test it and if works with them, join the last two to the homegroup as well. Just move the shares and printer temporarily.

Try Vultr using this link and get us both some credit:

http://www.vultr.com/?ref=7033587-3B

nathan

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#1472356 16-Jan-2016 06:00

Just because you can't browse doesn't mean it's not working

Personally I prefer to attach to shares in a scenario like this with host name or IP address rather than browsing the network.

macuser

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#1472444 16-Jan-2016 10:40

Do you want the laptops to view? Or not to?

The reason they probably can't see it at the moment is likely the laptops are set to consider your network public...so as soon as someone goes into network and sharing centre and clicks 'make this network' private, they now can see those drives. I suggest not making those folders public, use advanced sharing to share the files and make sure the computer account you're sharing on has a username and password (as well as easy to remember computer name)

Then all PCs you want to have access to the folder use the above method using the credentials from the computer with the shared file.

They obviously need to consider it a private connection to share the folders, so go to network and sharing centre, you'll see a pop down from the top that says 'file and printer sharing are disabled on public connections' or something to that effect, click it and tell it to convert this network to a private network. Then you'll see the other drives.

When signing into the drives you'll need to use OFFICE2COMPUTERNAME\USERNAMEOFOFFICE2SHAREACCOUNT when signing in

With the folders you want to be public, you should just use advanced sharing again and set the share permissions for that folder to be 'everyone'

kiwifidget

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#1472500 16-Jan-2016 11:12

Thanks macuser, I'll try that out.

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